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Client certificate

The Client Certificate device posture attribute checks if the device has a valid certificate signed by a trusted certificate authority (CA). The posture check can be used in Gateway and Access policies to ensure that the user is connecting from a managed device.

Feature availability
WARP modesZero Trust plans ↗
All modesAll plans
SystemAvailabilityMinimum WARP version1
Windows✅2024.6.415.0
macOS✅2024.6.416.0
Linux✅2024.6.497.0
iOS❌
Android❌
ChromeOS❌

1 Client certificate checks that ran on an earlier WARP version will continue to work. To configure a new certificate check, update WARP to the versions listed above.

Prerequisites

  • A CA that issues client certificates for your devices. WARP does not evaluate the certificate trust chain; this needs to be the issuing certificate.
  • Cloudflare WARP client is deployed on the device.
  • A client certificate is installed and trusted on the device.

Configure the client certificate check

  1. Use the Upload mTLS certificate endpoint to upload the certificate and private key to Cloudflare. The certificate must be a root CA, formatted as a single string with \n replacing the line breaks. The private key is only required if you are using this custom certificate for Gateway HTTPS inspection.

    Terminal window
    curl "https://api.cloudflare.com/client/v4/accounts/{account_id}/mtls_certificates" \
    --header "X-Auth-Email: <EMAIL>" \
    --header "X-Auth-Key: <API_KEY>" \
    --header "Content-Type: application/json" \
    --data '{
      "name": "example_ca_cert",
      "certificates": "-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----\nXXXXX\n-----END CERTIFICATE-----",
      "private_key": "-----BEGIN PRIVATE KEY-----\nXXXXX\n-----END PRIVATE KEY-----",
      "ca": true
    }'

    The response will return a UUID for the certificate. For example:

    {
      "success": true,
      "errors": [],
      "messages": [],
      "result": {
        "id": "2458ce5a-0c35-4c7f-82c7-8e9487d3ff60",
        "name": "example_ca_cert",
        "issuer": "O=Example Inc.,L=California,ST=San Francisco,C=US",
        "signature": "SHA256WithRSA"
        ...
      }
    }

  2. In Zero Trust ↗, go to Settings > WARP Client.

  3. Scroll down to WARP client checks and select Add new.

  4. Select Client certificate.

  5. You will be prompted for the following information:

    1. Name: Enter a unique name for this device posture check.
    2. Operating system: Select your operating system.
    3. OS locations: Specify the location(s) where the client certificate is installed.

      Windows
      • Local machine trust store - User trust store

      macOS

       - System keychain

      Linux
      • NSSDB (/etc/pki/nssdb) - To search a custom location, enter the absolute file path(s) to the certificate and private key (for example /usr/local/mycompany/certs/client.pem and /usr/local/mycompany/certs/client_key.pem). The certificate and private key must be in PEM format. They can either be in two different files or the same file.
    4. Certificate ID: Enter the UUID of the root CA.
    5. Common name: (Optional) To check for a specific common name on the client certificate, enter a string with optional ${serial_number} and ${hostname} variables (for example, ${serial_number}_mycompany). WARP will search for an exact, case-insensitive match. If you do not specify a common name, WARP will ignore the common name field on the certificate.
    6. Check for Extended Key Usage: (Optional) Check whether the client certificate has one or more attributes set. Supported values are Client authentication (1.3.6.1.5.5.7.3.2) and/or Email (1.3.6.1.5.5.7.3.4).
    7. Check for private key: (Recommended) When enabled, WARP checks that the device has a private key associated with the client certificate.

  6. Select Save.

Next, go to Logs > Posture and verify that the client certificate check is returning the expected results.

Troubleshooting

You can use the following commands to check if a client certificate is properly installed and trusted on the device.

  1. Open a PowerShell window.
  2. To search the local machine trust store for a certificate with a specific common name, run the following command:
PowerShell
Get-ChildItem Cert:\LocalMachine\My\ | where{$_.Subject -like "*<COMMON_NAME>*"}
  1. To search the user trust store for a certificate with a specific common name, run the following command:
PowerShell
Get-ChildItem Cert:\CurrentUser\My\ | where{$_.Subject -like "*<COMMON_NAME>*"}

For the posture check to pass, a certificate must appear in the output that validates against the uploaded root CA.

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